Biała Góra: the forgotten colony in the Medieval Pomeranian-Prussian borderlands

Biała Góra 3 is a small settlement founded in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century AD in the disputed Christian borderlands of Northern Europe. The incorporation of Pomerania into the Polish state in the tenth century was followed by a process of colonisation across the lower Vistula valley, which then stalled before resuming in the thirteenth century under the Teutonic Order. Biała Góra 3 is unusual in falling between the two expansionist phases and provides detailed insight into the ethnicity and economy of this borderland community. Pottery and metalwork show strong links with both Pomeranian and German colonists, and caches of bricks and roof tiles indicate durable buildings of the kind associated with the monastic and military orders. Evidence for the presence of merchants suggests Biała Góra 3 was one of many outposts in the commercial network that shadowed the Crusades.

Survival at the frontier of Holy War: political expansion, crusading, commerce and the medieval colonizing settlement at Biała Gora, North Poland

Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries AD, the Lower Vistula valley represented a permeable and shifting frontier between Pomerelia (eastern Pomerania), which had been incorporated into the Polish Christian state by the end of the tenth century, and the territories of western Prussian tribes, who had resisted attempts at Christianization. Pomeranian colonization eventually began to falter in the latter decades of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, most likely as a result of Prussian incursions, which saw the abandonment of sites across the borderland. Subsequently, the Teutonic Order and its allies led a protracted holy war against the Prussian tribes, which resulted in the conquest of the region and its incorporation into a theocratic state by the end of the thirteenth century. This was accompanied by a second wave of colonization, which resulted in the settlement pattern that is still visible in the landscape of north-central Poland today. However, not all colonies were destroyed or abandoned in between the two phases of colonization. The recently excavated site of Biała Góra, situated on the western side of the Forest of Sztum overlooking the River Nogat, represents a unique example of a transitional settlement that included both Pomeranian and Teutonic Order phases. The aim of this paper is to situate the site within its broader landscape context which can be characterized as a militarized frontier, where, from the later twelfth century and throughout much of the thirteenth century, political and economic expansion was combined with the ideology of Christian holy war and missionary activity. This paper considers how the colonists provisioned and sustained themselves in comparison to other sites within the region, and how Biała Góra may be tentatively linked to a documented but otherwise lost outpost in this volatile borderland.

Nonrecurrent MECP2 duplications mediated by genomic architecture-driven DNA breaks and break-induced replication repair

Recurrent submicroscopic genomic copy number changes are the result of nonallelic homologous recombination (NAHR). Nonrecurrent aberrations, however, can result from different nonexclusive recombination-repair mechanisms. We previously described small microduplications at Xq28 containing MECP2 in four male patients with a severe neurological phenotype. Here, we report on the fine-mapping and breakpoint analysis of 16 unique microduplications. The size of the overlapping copy number changes varies between 0.3 and 2.3 Mb, and FISH analysis on three patients demonstrated a tandem orientation. Although eight of the 32 breakpoint regions coincide with low-copy repeats, none of the duplications are the result of NAHR. Bioinformatics analysis of the breakpoint regions demonstrated a 2.5-fold higher frequency of Alu interspersed repeats as compared with control regions, as well as a very high GC content (53%). Unexpectedly, we obtained the junction in only one patient by long-range PCR, which revealed nonhomologous end joining as the mechanism. Breakpoint analysis in two other patients by inverse PCR and subsequent array comparative genomic hybridization analysis demonstrated the presence of a second duplicated region more telomeric at Xq28, of which one copy was inserted in between the duplicated MECP2 regions. These data suggest a two-step mechanism in which part of Xq28 is first inserted near the MECP2 locus, followed by breakage-induced replication with strand invasion of the normal sister chromatid. Our results indicate that the mechanism by which copy number changes occur in regions with a complex genomic architecture can yield complex rearrangements.

Historiografisk metafiktion och faktion : Romantikens berättelse om den förstenade gruvdrängen Fet-Mats i två postmoderna versioner

Fet-Mats är den gruvdräng som omkom och försvann i en rasolycka i Falu koppargruva under 1670-talet och vars kropp upptäcktes välbevarad, med fortfarande ungdomligt utseende, mer än fyra årtionden senare 1719. Han igenkändes då av sin trolovade - nu en gammal gumma. På grund av den märkligt bibehållna kroppen och det hisnande ögonblick då den åldrade kvinnan återsåg sin ungdoms kärlek, blev Fet-Mats och hans historia snabbt känd, även internationellt. Den spreds under 1800- och 1900-talen i Europa som novell och poesi, dramatik och opera. Även idag berättas historien om Fet-Mats både utomlands och i Sverige. Intresset för historien är rentav i växande. Orsaken härtill är omdaningen under senare år av Falu gruva från storindustri till musealt världsarv, från malmbrytning till turistorienterad upplevelseindustri. Fet-Mats-berättelsen bildar centrum i denna upplevelseindustri. I mitt paper diskuteras detta förhållande samt den nutida Fet-Mats-epikens karakteristika i ett semiotiskt, narratologiskt och tematiskt perspektiv. Jag finner bl.a. att Fet-Mats-berättandet idag, på ett annat sätt än tidigare, äger en flermedial karaktär och formulerar det postmoderna tillståndets centrala tematik: representationens kris. Jag fokuserar särskilt på två berättelser med anknytning till Fet-Mats-motivet: Julian Barnes historiografiska metafiktion The Story of Mats Israelson (2004) och det dramadokumentära seriealbumet Fet-Mats: en gruvdrängs hemska öde (2005).

Barn som förlorat en nära anhörig : Pedagogers bemötande av barn i sorg

Mitt examensarbete handlar om barn i sorg och pedagogers syn kring barn sorgarbete. Jag har intervjuat fyra verksamma pedagoger från förskolan till grundskolas tidigare år. Forskning har visat att det finns för lite kunskap kring barn i sorg i förskolan och skolan. Därmed såg fanns intresse att undersöka huruvida detta stämde överens med forskningen. Jag har även undersök hur länge pedagoger anser att sorg är ett argument för minskad skollust. Pedagogerna jag intervjuat har berättat för mig att de känner sig osäkra kring arbetet med barn i sorg och att de sedan tidigare har få kunskaper i ämnet.

Kvinnors behov av stöd vid bröstcancer : - En litteraturöversikt

Bakgrund Bröstcancer är den vanligaste typen av cancer hos kvinnor över hela världen. De som drabbas av bröstcancer har olika förutsättningar att hantera sin situation. Många av kvinnorna upplever en emotionell kris i samband med diagnosen och med hjälp av stöd från sjukvården kan patienten finna mening i sin situation. Syfte Syftet är att sammanställa aktuell forskning om bröstcancerdrabbade kvinnors effekter av stöd under diagnosperioden. Metod En litteraturöversikt som sammanställer aktuell forskning inom det valda omvårdnadsområdet. Resultat I resultatet framkom att kvinnorna behöver ett stöd i form av kommunikation, information samt ett emotionellt stöd från vårdpersonal. Stödet ska utformas efter patientens unika situation och när sjukvården är tillgänglig för patienterna minskas deras stress. Patienterna upplevde stöd under diagnosperioden då sjuksköterskan erhöll god förmåga att bemöta och kommunicera på ett adekvat sätt. Slutsats Studien visar att det krävs en god relation mellan bröstcancer drabbade kvinnor och vårdaren för att kvinnorna ska känna stöd.

Real-Time Flood Forecasting Systems In Flanders

As a highly urbanized and flood prone region, Flanders has experienced multiple floods causing significant damage in the past. In response to the floods of 1998 and 2002 the Flemish Environment Agency, responsible for managing 1 400 km of unnavigable rivers, started setting up a real time flood forecasting system in 2003. Currently the system covers almost 2 000 km of unnavigable rivers, for which flood forecasts are accessible online (www.waterinfo.be). The forecasting system comprises more than 1 000 hydrologic and 50 hydrodynamic models which are supplied with radar rainfall, rainfall forecasts and on-site observations. Forecasts for the next 2 days are generated hourly, while 10 day forecasts are generated twice a day. Additionally, twice daily simulations based on percentile rainfall forecasts (from EPS predictions) result in uncertainty bands for the latter. Subsequent flood forecasts use the most recent rainfall predictions and observed parameters at any time while uncertainty on the longer-term is taken into account. The flood forecasting system produces high resolution dynamic flood maps and graphs at about 200 river gauges and more than 3 000 forecast points. A customized emergency response system generates phone calls and text messages to a team of hydrologists initiating a pro-active response to prevent upcoming flood damage. The flood forecasting system of the Flemish Environment Agency is constantly evolving and has proven to be an indispensable tool in flood crisis management. This was clearly the case during the November 2010 floods, when the agency issued a press release 2 days in advance allowing water managers, emergency services and civilians to take measures.

The Genome Sequence of Taurine Cattle: A Window to Ruminant Biology and Evolution

To understand the biology and evolution of ruminants, the cattle genome was sequenced to about sevenfold coverage. The cattle genome contains a minimum of 22,000 genes, with a core set of 14,345 orthologs shared among seven mammalian species of which 1217 are absent or undetected in noneutherian (marsupial or monotreme) genomes. Cattle-specific evolutionary breakpoint regions in chromosomes have a higher density of segmental duplications, enrichment of repetitive elements, and species-specific variations in genes associated with lactation and immune responsiveness. Genes involved in metabolism are generally highly conserved, although five metabolic genes are deleted or extensively diverged from their human orthologs. The cattle genome sequence thus provides a resource for understanding mammalian evolution and accelerating livestock genetic improvement for milk and meat production.

Echocardiographic Doppler estimation of pulmonary artery pressure in critically ill patients with severe hypoxemia

BACKGROUND: In spontaneously breathing cardiac patients, pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) can be accurately estimated from the transthoracic Doppler study of pulmonary artery and tricuspid regurgitation blood flows. In critically ill patients on mechanical ventilation for acute lung injury, the interposition of gas between the probe and the heart renders the transthoracic approach problematic. This study was aimed at determining whether the transesophageal approach could offer an alternative. METHODS: Fifty-one consecutive sedated and ventilated patients with severe hypoxemia (arterial oxygen tension/fraction of inspired oxygen < 300) were prospectively studied. Mean PAP measured from the pulmonary artery catheter was compared with several indices characterizing pulmonary artery blood flow assessed using transesophageal echocardiography: preejection time, acceleration time, ejection duration, preejection time on ejection duration ratio, and acceleration time on ejection duration ratio. In a subgroup of 20 patients, systolic PAP measured from the pulmonary artery catheter immediately before withdrawal was compared with Doppler study of regurgitation tricuspid flow performed immediately after pulmonary artery catheter withdrawal using either the transthoracic or the transesophageal approach. RESULTS: Weak and clinically irrelevant correlations were found between mean PAP and indices of pulmonary artery flow. A statistically significant and clinically relevant correlation was found between systolic PAP and regurgitation tricuspid flow. In 3 patients (14%), pulmonary artery pressure could not be assessed echocardiographically. CONCLUSIONS: In hypoxemic patients on mechanical ventilation, mean PAP cannot be reliably estimated from indices characterizing pulmonary artery blood flow. Systolic PAP can be estimated from regurgitation tricuspid flow using either transthoracic or transesophageal approach. © 2008 American Society of Anesthesiologists, Inc.

Migration patterns and immigrants characteristics in North-Western Europe

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